Blading for compressors, turbines, and the like



Dec. 22, 1953 F. H. KEAST 2,663,493

BLADING FOR COMPRESSOR-S, TURBINES, AND THE'LIKE Filed April 26, 1949 7 Sheets-Sheet l uvvmvron FRANCIS H. KEAST ATTORNEY Dec. 22, 1953 F. H. KEAST 2,663,493

BLADING FOR COMPRESSORS, TURBINES, AND THE LIKE Filed April 26, 1949 7 Sheets-Sheet 2 IN-VENTOR FRANCIS H. KEAST ATTORNEY F. H. KEAST Dec. 22, 1953 BLADING FOR COMPRESSORS, TURBINES, AND THE LIKE 7 Sheets-Sheet 3 Filed April 26, 1949 mmmtsw no MIQZ o-a MACH NUMBER.

mumkm .LO MIOZ 0 0 o 4 3 w w 7 m/ m R .m R w M /M "N 6 1/1-! 1/! 5 4 s \m T w z 6 5 M m w o o INNER DIAMETER szcrloum. NUMBERS. OUTER DIAMETER (ROTOR ROOT) LOCATION OF SEC-HON (ROTOR TIP) INVENTOR BJFRANCIS. H. KEAST ATTQRNEY.

Dec. 22, 1953 F. H. KEAST 2,663,493

BLADING FOR COMPRESSORS, TURBINEZS, AND THE LIKE Filed April 26, 1949 '7 SheetsSheet 4 INVENTOR FRANCIS H. KEAST ATTORNEY Dec. 22, 1953 F. H. KEAST 2,663,493

BLADING FOR COMPRESSORS, TURBINES, AND THE LIKE Filed April 26, 1949 7 Sheets-Sheet 5 I INVENTOR.

FRANCIS H. KEAST Eb W ATTORNEY Dec. 22, 1953 F. H. KEAST BLA'DING FOR COMPRESSORS, TURBINES, AND THE LIKE 7 Sheets-Sheet 6 Filed April 26, 1949 Nm n 0 Dec. 22, 1953 F. H. KEAST 2,663,493

BLADING FOR COMPRESSORS, TURBINES, AND THE LIKE Filed April 26, 1949 7 Sheets-Sheet 7 INVENTOR, FHHEAST P flrro IENEX Patented Dec. 22, 1953 UNlTED STATES; OFFICE READING FOR CGMPRES SUBS; TURBINES,. AND-THE LIKE.

F- ran'cis Ke'a'st; Toronto, Ontario; Ganad'a, a's

signor'to-A; Vi Roe" Canada Limited, Malton, Ontario; Ganadagiazcorporation.

Ap utatibnA l-ilzzeg 1949;.serial'iNt; seine G GIaiinSL- (Cl. 23'0'I2'2) This invention relatest'oi bladin'g, for compressors'; turbines and the like" operating: with al com"- pressiblefiuid; and more particularly'to lolading for compressors" or turbines": which' are intended to operate undersuch conditions" that the velocities of the fluidflowrelati /eto the stationary or moving-"bladesare so high that the'com'pressibil ity of the fluid may affect adversely the operation ofthe compressor orturbinez V As-therelativevelocityof a; fluid past a solid body, such a'sa blade,yinc'reases, the* relative velocity will reach'avalue-at'whichthe'effectof the body' on the fluid flow is sucha's to cause part of the fluid to move with a velocity equal to or close to the localspeed ofsound' in the fluid. At or near this condition adverse effects occur" which increase the drag forces acting: on thebody and result'in disturbed fiow conditions; In the'case of a compressor or turbine operating with' a; compressible-fluid theeffect fs-to" decrease the efliciency'of compressionor'expansion. Therefore in the design of such compressors or turbines care is taken toavoid large adirerse'effects due'to the factors explained above. Theusualmethod of doing this is to'l'imit the velocities of the-fluid flow'rela tive to the blades-of themachine: It is clear, how'- ever, that if higher" relative" velocities could be used without the-adverse" effects mentioned above considerable advantagewvculd result. The main object of thi's'invention-isconsequen'tlytotpros vide a blade construction which will operate cfficientl y at relative velocities which eq'ualan" appreciabl'e fraction of the'localspeedof sound in the fluid.

A further importantobje'ct' of this invention is to provide a form of 'bla'de designed' to permit'the construction of efficient rotary fluid" compressors or turbines which are more compact and lighter than existing machines withoutsacrificingperforrnain'ce characteristics.

Itis wellknown -that an" aircraftWingwhich' is swept either backwards o1 forwards relative to the a proaching-aairstie'am' has the e'fiect of delaying: the onset of the adverse compressibility" effects as theaircra'ft speed relative to the air increases; that i's'; the effects are not noticeable until higher speeds: are reached than those at which the effects would? occur" with an aircraft with unswept Wing's. In aireraft however, Where wings sweep backwards 'or forward from the" apex of a V earlycompressibility effects occur either at thea'pex'of thevin the case where the wings" are swept back,xo1"at"'the wing tips where the-wlngsare swept forward; In accordance with this invention, tirebla'din'g; is so designed that 2: the: apex of the is located in". 8;. region 01. low loc'a'li' relative" velocity; so th'at'noearly compressibility'troubles arise'at'that' point.

Iir the case of rotor'bl'ading foran axial flow" type compresso'rthe' proper placing of the apex" of "theV"ma'y'beachieved by using as a, basis thetype of blading similar'to-thatknown as free' relative tbtlle rotor bl'ade'ishighest at the tip-of th'e'lolade's; iletatthe outer'di'ameter; while for the stator blacle' the highest relative velocity is" also at the tip; whichdn'this case is at the inner diameter. At'anyother section the relativevelbc: ities are lower than these" maxima' so that the" apexof thev can" beat anintermediate section chosen in amanner subsequently described; This location o'f'the apex may" be'so chosen that theearly eff ect's of'compressibility are avoided at the" apex whillstthe sWeep-back'a't the'tip ensurethat" they will-be avoided there also.- In practice'there will be some freedom in" the choice of the intermediate's'ection at which the apex" occurs and it may-loecliosen so that the bending stresses in the rotor blade caused by the offsetting of the sections'arelativ'e to the root" are a minimum. An other ohject ofthe invention is-th'erefore to provide a: blade? construction inwhich centrifugal stresses are minimized while themost' efiicient form for avoiding compressibility efiects is obtamed;

All of the foregoing and still further objects and? advantages ofth'e-i'nvention will become appai' ent fromrag study of the following specification;

taken. in. conjunction with the accompanying cludes- (left;- hand: portion) the resulting" projecrtion' of. successive camber" lines and leading and trailing edgesiof the" said blade. on the plane of the root se'ction of the blade; that is on a plane tangential to: the rotor. I

Fig. 2' includes fl'eft handp'ortion) a reproducti'ori of the proj'ecti'orr in Fig; 1, v and it; also ineludes (right handportion a projection of theleading, and trailing edges of the said blade, after the first design step, on a radial. plane contain-- ing the axisiof the compressor.,

Fig. is aradi'al endivierw of the. simplified form of; swept blade afterthe first design. step.

4 is a combined construction diagram and projection, and it includes (lower right hand portion) the construction lines for the second step in designing a simplified form of swept compressor rotor blade according to the invention; it includes (left hand portion) the resulting projection of successive camber lines and leading and trailing edges of the said blade on the plane of the root section of the blade, that is on a plane tangential to the rotor, and it also includes (upper right hand portion) a projection of the leading and trailing edges of the said blade, after the second design step, on a radial plane containing the axis of the compressor.

Fig. 5 is a radial end view of the simplified form of swept blade after the second design step.

Fig. 6 is a graph showing the efi'ect of the angle of sweep on the value of the critical Mach number for a typical compressor section.

Fig. '7 is a graph showing in full lines the variation of the design Mach number along a typical compressor rotor blade and stator blade, and, in dotted lines, the angle of sweep required at any section to make the design Mach number correspond to the critical Mach number as determined by the graph shown in Fig. 6.

Fig. 8 is a combined construction diagram and projection, and it includes (lower right hand portion) the construction lines for the first step in designing a corrected form of swept compressor rotor blade according to the invention; it includes (left hand portion) the resulting projection of successive camber lines and leading and trailing edges of the said blade on the plane of the root section of the blade, that is on a plane tangential to the rotor, and it also includes (upper right hand portion) a projection of the leading and trailing edges of the said blade, after the first design step, on a radial plane containing the axis of the compressor.

Fig. 9 is a radial end View of the correctedform of swept blade after the first design step.

Fig. 10 is a combined construction diagram and projection, and it includes (lower right hand portion) the construction lines for the second step in designing a corrected form of swept compressor rotor blade according to the invention; it includes (left hand portion) the resulting projection of successive camber lines and leading and trailing edges of the said blade on the plane of L the root section of the blade, that is on a plane tangential to the rotor, and it also includes (upper right hand portion) a projection of the leading and trailing edges of the said blade, after the second design step, on a radial plane containing the axis of the compressor. 1

Fig. 11 is a radial end view of the final cor reoted form of swept blade after the second design step.

Fig. 12 is a fragmentary view of a typical rotor disc carrying swept rotor blades according to the invention, showing the orientation of blades relative to the axis of rotation of the rotor.

Fig. 13 is a fragmentary sectional view, taken on a radial plane containing the axis of the compressor, of several stages of the compressor and showing rotor and stator blades according to the invention installed in the conventional arrangement of alternating rotor and stator blades.

A rotor blade for an axial flow compressor has been chosen for the purpose of illustration but the same type of blade is adapted for use in a compressor stator and also in the rotors and stators of turbines. Furthermore, to clarify the explanation throughout, circular arcs have been 4 chosen to indicate camber lines of a rotor blade, although this may be departed from in an actual blade design without afiecting the principles involved in the invention. The first step in designing a simplified form of blade according to the invention is diagrammatically shown in Figs. 1 and 2. Viewed radially to the compressor rotor, seven points designated as 01, C2, C3, C4, C5, C6 and C7 are the centres of circles whose circular arcs of equal length, corresponding to the illustratedarcs L1T1, L2T2, LsTs, Lil '4, LsTs, LoTs, and L'zTv, would define seven camber lines (not shown) located at equally spaced arbitararily-chosen successive sections, numbered 1, 2, 3, l, 5, 6 and 3 beginning with the root section, of the usual type of prior art blade. Such a prior art blade would have a straight leading edge which would cor respond in radial end View to the position of L1 in Fig. 1, and the radii of the successive arcs t would be progressively greater so that all the circular arcs would pass through the point L1, that is L1, L2, L3, L4, L5, L6 and L7 would be super imposer. According to the invention the abovedescribed prior art blade is given a sweep in a direction which depends upon the direction of the air flow at successive points along the leading edge of the blade.

The desired sweep is derived by efiecting progressively increasing displacements of the centres of the arcs representing camber lines of the usual prior art blade; C2 being displaced to a new po sition C2 such that the direction of the line C202 is opposite to the sense of the air fiow at the point midway between sections l and 2, and C3 being displaced to a point C3 located by efiecting a displacement of C3 identical with the displacement given to C2 and effecting a further displacement in the sense opposite to the sense of the air flow at the point midway between sections 2 and 3. The method of deriving the respective magnitudes of the said displacements will be described subsequently, but for purposes of illustrating the simplified form of blade the magnitude of each displacement is here arbitrarily taken so as to produce a blade having angular leading and trailing edges.

From section 3, corresponding to the centre C3, to the tip of the blade, subsequent sections are swept in the opposite sense, namely, in a direction identical to the sense of the air flow at successive points along the leading edge of the blade, by, first, displacing the centres C4, C5, Cs and C7 by the same amount and in the same sense as the displacement of C3 to C3, and second, displacing them from the positions thus found to new positions C4, C5, C6 and C7, the second displacements having progressively greater magnitudes in a sense identical to the direction of the air flow at the point midway between the section under consideration and the previous section.

From C1 and from the new centres C2, C3, C4,

C5, C6 and C1, the camber lines numbered 9, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5 and l according to the number of the section at which each is located are drawn as a series of circular arcs each of which will terminate at the leading and trailing edges of the blade. The radii of the successive arcs is the same as the radii of the corresponding arcs in the above-mentioned prior art blade, that is, CiLi, C2L1, C3L1, C4111, CsLi, Cola and C7111 respectively, since in the prior art blade L1, L2, L3, L4, L5, L6 and L7 are superimposed. The points L2, is, L4, L5. L6 and L7 on the leading edge, corresponding to the sections 2, 3, l, 5, 5 and i displacements of the centres C5, C6 and C7, are

calculated by multiplying the tangent of the required angle of sweep at each section by the distance between the sections. The relative displacements of the centres C2, C3 and C4 are similarly calculated but from the data obtained from the graph applicable to a stator blade A (see Fig. 13) since the angle of sweep at the root of a rotor blade B is not required to overcome adverse compressibility effects but is incorporated in order that the stator blades adjacent thereto and requiring sweep at the tip may be accommodated in as short an axial length as possible in the assembly of the compressor or turbine; in addition the sweep at the root of the rotor blade is beneficial in correcting the location of the centre of gravity of the blade in view or" the sweep at the tip thereof.

Accordingly for either a stator or a rotor blade.

the magnitudes of the displacement C282 and the dependent displacements C303, C461, CsCs, CsCs' and C707 may be readily determined by applying the graphs appropriate to the blade, to determine the sweep at the tip, and the graphs appropriate to the adjacent interacting blade, to determine the sweep at the root.

In a manner analogous to the design step shown in Fig. -'l, the'corrected blade shown in radial end view in Fig. 9 and constructed according to the design steps indicated in Fig. 3 is finally given a progressive displacement from root to tip by imposing additional displacements C2'C2, CsCs' CiCi, C5C5", C'e'Cs", and QqCv", on the centres of the camber lines 2, 3, ii, 5, 5, "i in a direction substantially perpendicular to the chord lines of the individual sections, as indicated in Fig. 10. It will be realized that the additional displacements will cause a slight change in the effective angle of sweep. This may be allowed for in applying the additional sweep in the first step of the design by use, for example, of a small empirical correction factor. The final form or" such a blade is shown is radial end view in 11. t will be seen that in this final form, the blade swept at the tip in such a way as to minimize the effects due to the compressibility of the fluid at high speeds; the angle of sweep at any section has been determined according to the magnitude of the relative velocity of the fluid flow at the section, and the direction of sweep is the same as the direction of the local fluid flow at that section of the blade; the blade is swept at the root so that the centre of gravity of the blade lies in the plane of rotation of the centroid of the root section, and finally the blade has a progressive displacement from root to tip as a result of an additional displacement of ach section such that the centroids of all the sections of the blade are located approximately in the radial plane containing the axis of transverse bending, the stresses caused by forces acting on the swept blade being thereby minimized;

The blades according to the invention may be mounted by means of conventional roots ii on a conventional rotor disc 18 as shown in Fig. 12.

It is thought that the construction and use of the invention will. be apparent from the above description of the various parts and their purpose. it is to be understood that the form of the invention herewith shown and described is to be taken as a preferred example of the same and that various changes in the shape, size and ar rangement of parts may be resorted to, without departing from the spirit of the invention or the scope of the subjoined claims.

What I claim as my invention is:

1. 'A blade for compressors, turbines and the like having successive alternating stator and rotor elements each carrying similar fixed blades, the said blade being characterized in that the leading edge at every successive foil section radially outward from a selected point on the leading edge between the root and the tip is displaced relatively to the leading edge at the preceding foil section in the same sense as the local fluid flow in the machine midway between the said sections, and the leading edge at every successive foil section outward from the root to the said selected point is displaced relatively to the leading edge at the preceding foil section in a sense generally opposite to that of the fluid flow in the machine whereby the leading edge configuration of the root portion will conform generally to the leading edge configuration of the tip portions of the preceding adjacent blades, the angle of sweep of the leading edge of the said blade at any section being not substantially less than the minimum required to maintain subsonic flow at that section.

2. A blade as claimed in claim 1 in which the trailing edges of successive foil sections outward from the root are displaced relatively to the trailing edges of the preceding foil sections in the same manner as the leading edges of the successive foil sections outward from the root.

3. A blade as claimed in claim 1 of the rotor type in which the extent of the said displacements in a sense opposite to that of the local fluid flow in the machine is such that the centre of gravity of the blade lies approximately in the plane of rotation of the centroid of the root section.

4. A blade for compressors, turbines and the like having successive alternating stator and rotor elements each carrying similar fixed blades, the said blade being characterized in that the leading edge at every successive foil section radially outward from a selected point on the leading edge between the root and the tip is displaced relatively to the leading edge at the preceding foil section in the same sense as the local fluid flow in the machine midway between the said sections, and the leading edge at every successive foil section outward from the root to the said selected point is displaced relatively to the leading edge at the preceding foil section in a sense generally opposite to that of the fluid flow'in the machine whereby the leading edge configuration of the root portion will conform generally to the leading edge configuration of the tip portions of the preceding adjacent blades, the angle of sweep of the leading edge of the said blade at any section being not substantially less than the minimum required to maintain subsonic flow at that section, and further characterized in that successive foil sections outward from the root have relative displacements whereby the centre of'gravity of the blade lies approximately in a radial plane containing an axis of transverse bending, the said axis of transverse bending being a hypothetical line through the centroid of the root section and substantially parallel to the chord of the root section.

5. A blade as claimed in claim 4 in which the trailing edges of successive foil sections radially outward from the root are displaced relatively to the trailing edges of the preceding foil sections in the same manner as the leading edges of thet successive foil sections outward from the roo 6. blade as claimed in claim 4 of the rotor type in which the extent of the said displacements in a sense opposite to that of the local fluid flow Number in the machine is such that the centre of gravity 1,613,816 of the blade lies approximately in the plane of 2,327,061 rotation of the centroid of the root section. 2,378,372 FRANCIS KELAST. 5 2,460,902

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS g'gg Number Name Date 1 1,504,710 Roberts Aug. 12, 1924 0 Name Date Biggs Jan. 11, 1927 Pollingher Aug. 17, 1943 Whittle June 12, 1945 Odor Feb. 8, 1949 FOREIGN PATENTS Country Date Germany Feb. 11, 1952 

